How to start the Dino Day

The big Dino Birthday party

For Peg and Chris...

Hope they let you take the Swagger Waggon.

Wow.  A whole lot more people are really coming to this shindig that I thought would.  Guess I'd better dust off that 2nd bottle of tequila and add a few more tables to the list.  And sandwiches.  We're going to need more sandwiches.

But I still think we're good on cake.

:)

Mastitis.  Not so common in a non-nursing mother, yet here I sit with mastitis.  Let me tell you, my bra is off to any woman who does have mastitis and a nursing baby.  Aye carumba!  That has got to be something more than love.  Now I'm going to go back to taking my Lortab and moaning.

Smoked deer for dinner...

Over the weekend, our local YMCA had its 3rd annual Healthy Kids Day.  They had a wonderful day of family activities and fun stuff to do.  It's fun, and this year, The Force ran in his first race.  We had some serious pre-game prep, including races from the top of the driveway to the basement, sports massages, and carb-loading via ice cream sundaes.  We were game-on come race day!

Eddie the deer is
 the YMCA mascot.  Before the big race, Luke told him "Hey Eddie, I hope you brought your A game!!!" 

 

Eddie was supposed to be the "race leader" so the kids would know what path to follow for their race.  Whatever.  As far as Luke was concerned, Eddie's lead was limited to a "for pictures only" situation.

And once the race was on, he was just obsessed with passing kids... and his eyes were on Eddie.  (And yes, that is PB running with him.  In this age group, you run with a parent.)

Check out the sheer determination on his face!  The tongue stuck out.  The wind in his hair.  The scent of Eddie on the wind only pushes him on!

And did he catch Eddie, you may ask?  Oh yes!  He passed Eddie on the inside and never looked back.  Okay, he may have looked back, and I may have screamed "DON'T LOOK BACK, JUST RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!!"  

I will not confirm nor deny this.

But in the end, The Force was victorious and he finished FIRST!  Yep, first, like even in front of EDDIE THE DEER!  And being the good sport he is, he told Eddie to keep working on it, that he'd be back next year.  :)

All the RSVPs are due next week, and I think karma's f*cking with me again.  I'm getting it handed back for all the RSVPs I never sent back.  I guess I figured if you're IN the wedding they KNOW  you're coming, right?  I can honestly say I have never thought about having to write down someone's food preferences for a caterer (not that you get a chocie at our shindig), or how hard it is to remember who you've run into that said they're coming, or even to remember to count in your own parents when you're focused on a stack of little 3x4" cards and you don't have theirs.  (Not that I'm judging you, Mom and Dad, 'cause we don't have cards for anyone in PB's family, but we know you're all coming.  It's just a point being made.) 

I also have thought the the post office was trying to ruin my life again, but it turns out it's just a case of one faulty address, and one very busy family with four very busy children and a very busy kitchen.  My poor cousin (but not my FAT COUSIN) and some crazy-ass friends in Alaska thought they were being left out of the shenanigans, but alas, my cousin had the decency to make contact and ask what was up (since at the family reunion last year she was most certainly NOT the fat cousin) and the other just emailed to ask where they could send the check since they didn't get an invite (classy bitch she is!  LOVE IT!).  Got both things straightened out, and yesterday got the cousin's poorly addressed first invitation back in the mail, 5 weeks after it was sent.  WTF?  That's bad even by the post office's standards on how to ruin my life.  My friends tore their kitchen apart and found they they had indeed received the invitation and it was hidden under a pile of their lovely childrens' school stuff, important mail, tax documents, and you know, life in general, proving once again that despite my best efforts I am not the actual center of the Universe.  Oh well.  There is still one case of still unconfirmed possible non-delivery of invitation, but if we can't actually get you to call back and confirm, you might not actually care about coming, and that's that in my book.  It turns out it makes quite a difference in the # of chairs, plates, cups, and pounds of pig I need to buy if 100 vs 60 people are coming.  (Now that the rental guy/caterer is back on the map, I'm rather certain we're going to have tables, chairs, AND food!  Whoo hoo!  The cake we've ALWAYS been sure of, right Elaine?)

So, if you were invited and you're coming, send in that card!  If you were invited and you're not coming, do me a favor... don't worry that my feelings will be hurt (even though I've already admitted that they will a little) when sending back your regrets.  Really, I get it.  (Sort of, for the most part.)  Virginia is far away, and you all have lives that keep you busy, and coming to a wedding is not free unless I win the lottery before then (then it's going to be totally free for everyone, I promise!)  I just want you to nash your teeth, wail and moan, and throw yourself on the bomb a little, okay?  At least make a show of it.  And if your kids/significant other/dog/or cat was invited, I welcome pictures of them wailing and moaning, and possibly drinking excessively to wash away their misery (make sure it's pedialyte for the kiddies, I will not be held responsible for Kool-Aid overdoses) at not being able to come.  Bonus points will be awarded for the most flowery, gawdy, horrendously superfluous and tacky letters of regret.  That's the kind I like the best.  It's quite possible they will be put in the photo album where your picture should have been.  :)

Also, last night I used the watering hose as a lethal weapon to kill a snake.  It hissed at me while I was watering a plant so I had to kill it.  I don't like snakes, and hissing is threatening, and it was withing striking distance.  I don't know shit about snakes, and I didn't feel I really had time to run inside, Google poisonous vs non poisonous snakes in VA, then go back outside and let it know if it had to die.  In my book, the only good snake is a dead one, so I turned it into a good snake.  My Little Mombo can tell you the story of being terrified of a spider on the wall in her bedroom when she was a little girl.  She ran screaming into her parents room to get her father to come kill it.  When they came back in, the spider was gone.  Grandpa said something to the extent of, "Well, don't you feel stupid, because if you had just killed it, you'd have known it was dead.  Now you have to sleep in here and you don't know where that spider is."  I'd like to think it was more kind and gentle than that, but knowing my Grandpa, it probably was just about that straight forward.  That's a good lesson learned, though, so I killed that snake.  I left it in the backyard as a warning to its friends, and PB plans to set it on fire when he gets home tomorrow just for good measure.  He's more afraid of snakes than I am.  My new nickname is "Dundee".  Badass.

The end.